How to Save a Life

How to Save a Life

Addiction to drugs or alcohol is no longer a mystery. In the past there has been much talk of the “addictive personality”, the idea being that some people are in higher risk of addiction than others. It has also been said that there is no lasting treatment for addiction. That would be a pretty grim state of affairs if these things were true, but they are not.

People begin to take drugs or alcohol because it helps them feel better in some way. That might be oversimplifying it a bit, but it’s essentially still true.

Drugs block off unwanted pain, sensations and emotions. Someone takes a drug as a cure for physical suffering or unwanted feelings (such as antagonism, anger, fear, grief, apathy or a death feeling). But drugs also rob life of the desirable sensations and joys which are really the only reason for living in the first place.

Added to this, drugs are a kind of trap. The relief they bring is only temporary, and after that the person feels worse. Not only does he still have the pain or feelings that made drugs seem attractive in the first place, but he also feels bad as a direct result of the long-term effects of the drugs.

Usually, the only answer the person has to this is more drugs. So drugs become a vicious circle, and the drug taker always ends up the loser. He ceases to be in control of his life and sooner or later ends up dead.

Drugs and the Mind

“Drugs are essentially poisons,” wrote L. Ron Hubbard. “The degree they are taken determines the effect. A small amount acts as a stimulant. A greater amount acts as a sedative. A larger amount still acts as a poison and can kill one dead. This is true of any drug.

“Drugs have a very definite, long-term effect on a person’s ability to play the game of life and to succeed. Drugs tend to regress a person That is to say, they tend to throw him out of the present and into the past. They can actually stick the person in periods of his past experiences, often past experiences with drugs, alcohol or medicine. Even someone off drugs for years still has ‘blank periods.’ And his abilities to concentrate and to learn are injured. Those who have been long and habitually on drugs are anesthetized (unfeeling) and sometimes have ‘nothing troubling them,’ whereas they are actually in a suppressed physical condition and cannot cease to take drugs or alcohol. I have even established that there is such a thing as a ‘drug personality.’ It is artificial and is created by drugs. Drugs can apparently change the attitude of a person from his original personality to one secretly harboring hostilities and hatreds he does not permit to show on the surface.

“While this may not hold true in all cases, it does establish al ink between drugs and increasing difficulties with crime, production and the modern breakdown of social and industrial culture.”

New Hope

However, the problem of drugs does have a solution. It has been found that as soon as an addict can feel healtheir and more competent mentally and physically without drugs than he does on drugs, he ceases to require drugs.

This is the key to the effectiveness of the Narconon drug rehabilitation program. This is why Narconon not only can get people off drugs, but also why Narconon graduates are successful in living drug-free lives.